That was a long time between posts....

It's been an incredibly stressful week with all of the legal stuff.

The Family Dispute Resolution conference was supposed to have been last Friday... a mandatory "final" effort at agreeing on court orders with DH before the judge gets to decide.

It was supposed to have been the three lawyers representing the boys, DH and me.

But the boys' lawyer was sick and had not met them. And she wouldn't be meeting them before the hearing.

This was a REALLY bad thing, as the biggest thing that my argument has going for it is that the boys' do NOT want to change the current living arrangements, and the boys' lawyer is supposed to present the Family Court Counsellor's report stating that it would be detrimental to the boys if the current arrangements were changed.

But the Resolution conference date was not being changed DESPITE the boys' lawyer not having met the boys. And it was still going to go ahead even if she didn't appear.

This was insane. My lawyer had not been given the Counsellor's report and therefore we could not present any information from it.

And.... if it looked as though I was being the difficult one in terms of deferring the Resolution conference date and therefore seen to be the one not willing to come to an agreement, I could be forced to pay DH's costs as well as mine. ALL of them... not just for this hearing.

So... I made a HUGE fuss with my lawyer and mentioned taking this to the Federal Court if we went ahead with this with the boys' lawyer having not even met with her clients. I was speaking through my .. umm... BUM because I have no idea if I can even do that!

He madly rang all involved, and it turned out that the Court Counsellor had not even prepared a report as she had not been told of the hearing date.

That was it.

Six or seven emails later, the hearing was postponed. By the children's lawyer.

My heart was in my chest all day.

But then the BEST THING HAPPENED!

My lawyer had applied for a check on the Property Index Register. Something that the Child Support Agency had told me that they had done years ago.

And DH owns a property.

With his sister. But it's an asset that he has not mentioned in any of his financial statements to the court or to the child support agency. He also has not reported any income from tenants. It is an asset which can be held against a debt.

Whether it WILL be is another thing altogether. But as long as the debt does not get removed with the application that he is currently lodging, I can put a caveat on the title of the property to ensure that he can never sell it without a court case involving repaying me the money. The outcome of that court case would be the only way to lift the caveat and allow the sale. I can imagine that his sister may need the money at some stage in her lifetime and therefore the sale will be inevitable.

The lying scum bag finally got found out.

I then rang the Child Support Agency to report this latest piece of information, and they told me that our case is now, after SIX bloody years(!!!!)... escalated to the "Intensive Debt Collection" cell. This is where they can run the "level 2 searches" like property searches and Oztrek searches (looking for money going in and out of the country from/to him).

Apparently his need for privacy protected him from having any of those searches run on him before.

I am furious that they have not escalated us to this "cell" before! How big does the debt have to get for that to happen?! How many months/years does he get to NOT pay before that happens?

Still.... the fact that I have found this asset of his has lightened my spirit unbelievably. It's the first good news I've had in a long time.

And, even though I knew he was a lying piece of shit, it gives me even greater satisfaction to have it so blatantly displayed for all the world (and all the judges) to see.